Van insurance customers find thieves targeting Transits

According to statistics from the ACPO Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (AVCIS), for the first quarter of 2011 the Transit van was the most stolen vehicle of any in the UK. This is prompting many van insurance customers to check their policies are up-to-date to make sure they can make a claim if the same should happen to them.

47,300 Transit vans were sold last year alone making it Britain’s biggest selling van. It is thought that this maybe a factor in the high number being stolen. However, opportunistic thieves are also targeting the Transit as the van has a high scrap value and there is also a fairly strong likelihood of finding equipment of value stored away in the load area.

AVCIS said that 26,625 vehicles were stolen between January 1 and March 31, of which over 6% were Transits. This figure is startling when you consider 60% more transits were stolen in the first three months of this year than Vauxhall Astras, which are the UK’s second most targeted vehicle. Many van insurers are warning van insurance quotes customers to check their policies to make sure they are sufficiently covered should their van follow a similar fate.

The only other commercial vehicle to feature in the list of the ten most stolen was the Mercedes Sprinter. 500 such vans were stolen in the first quarter of the year, representing 1.88% of the grand total.

Although such figures may prompt panic amongst van insurance quotes customers, vehicle crime actually dropped by 5% overall, with 109,353 incidents reported.

With the considerable improvements in vehicle security which have been made over the past couple of decades, car insurance repair research centre Thatcham, claims that 80% of vehicles are now stolen with thieves obtaining the keys first.

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